


strangers meeting for the first time

by buckgaybarnes



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Cocktail Waiter Newt, Flirting, Gambling, Getting Together, M/M, Pool & Billiards, Pool Shark Hermann, Pretending to Not Know Each Other, Protectiveness, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 07:09:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20254183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: After the recent bought of k-sci budget cuts, Newt is forced to get a little creative with funding.Hermann, Newt discovers, has gotten creative too.





	strangers meeting for the first time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feriowind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feriowind/gifts).

> fic inspired by a convo from aboutttttt 6 months ago at this point, and written in a haze in about a day with some Very Excellent art as inspiration. this is like 5k words of nonsense, and an idea i definitely already touched on in that one sexy halloween roleplay fic. enjoy!

Newt picks up a job as a cocktail waiter in a moment of sheer desperation.

PPDC funding’s tight. It’s always been tight—Newt can’t remember a time when it hasn’t been—but lately, is the thing, it’s gotten worse. More budget cuts. Newt could get new samples before, and maybe not high-end equipment, but equipment that got the job _done_, and his salary made room for a comfortable amount of takeout for lunch when the mess hall food finally got unbearable, but lately his supply requisition forms have been coming back stamped with big red _Rejected_s, his paychecks with significant chunks missing, and it’s not just him, you know, it’s Hermann, too, down to his very last box of chalk and a threadbare blazer with elbow patches that seem to grow exponentially each day, it’s all of the Shatterdome, making do with deteriorating tech and limited supplies of instant coffee. It’s a fucking inconvenience. Newt’s been hacking up the same piece of kaiju for six months. How is he expected to learn anything useful?

Funding’s tight, there’s a war on, and desperate times call for desperate measures and all that bullshit, and Newt’s got it, so he may as well flaunt it for the good of humanity.

It’s not a bad gig, either. The costume’s a little much, and drunk patrons (especially tourists) have a tendency to get a little _handsy_, and he usually doesn’t get back ‘til three in the morning (so exhausted from the combo of his lab work and waiting tables that he collapses the second he gets his door open), but the bar’s a ten minute bus ride from the Shatterdome, it’s only a few nights a week, and Newt gets _nice _tips. He’s already raked in enough extra cash to cover more than half of what he needs for another kaiju spleen off the not-quite-legal market. He can live with the cons.

He hasn’t told Hermann yet. Not that it’s any of his business, but it still feels weird not telling him. Newt tells Hermann everything, overshares, really, and especially when Hermann couldn't care less about what Newt has to say. Anyway, Hermann’s been up to weird shit of his own lately, and if Newt’s being cagey, Hermann’s being _ doubly _so; he’s been cutting out on their shared dinners, showing up to work earlier so he can finish up earlier, not answering the door when Newt comes knocking at one in the morning on nights when he hasn’t got a shift here to talk or smoke or drink tea because he’s bored. If Hermann can have his secrets, so can Newt.

Hermann’s are probably more interesting than _ this_, though.

“Four cocktails to the back right corner,” tonight’s bartender tells Newt, sliding a tray across to him, and Newt casts one look over to where she’s pointing and sighs. He’s used to these guys; American tourists, or maybe expats, here every Friday night to play pool, get blackout drunk, drop innuendo, and tug on the end of Newt’s skirt and crack a million fucking jokes about it. He recognizes three of them, at least—they must’ve brought another obnoxious friend tonight that needed the extra cocktail.

He does a shitty job of hiding his irritation. The bartender notices. “I know,” she says. “If they give you any trouble—”

“Nah,” Newt says. He balances the circular tray on one cocked hip. “I’ll be good.” Better him than some poor twenty-something getting harassed, anyway.

He fixes a sultry smile on his face as he stumbles over. (He’s still not used to these heels.) A lot of guys here, Newt’s come to learn, like him dumb and slutty; the more he bats his eyelashes, sticks his ass out, and giggles at lame jokes, the higher his tips. _ Significantly _higher. Newt can play dumb and slutty. Newt can enjoy playing dumb and slutty.

He decides to try for the new guy first, in the hopes that he’s not nearly as much as a douche as his friends have turned out to be. He looks like he might be cute, too—little bit taller than Newt, broad shoulders, a dark undercut, tight jeans and leather jacket. (Ass is a little flat, but whatever.) Newt hoists the tray to his other hip and gives the leather jacket a tug. “Hi, handsome,” he says. The other three dudes—Newt’s long-term admirers—perk up and give him lingering, approving stares. “You guys order some—?”

The new guy turns around, and the rest of the sentence dies on Newt’s tongue.

It’s Hermann, but not like Newt’s ever seen him: leather jacket and tight jeans aside, he’s lost his glasses, slicked back his hair, and swapped out his usual wrinkled button-down for a t-shirt Newt knows is his own. He wouldn’t even be sure it _ is _Hermann, maybe Hermann’s bizarre, well-groomed, sexy twin, if he didn’t have Hermann’s cane, and if—wide-eyed, open-mouthed, staggering back—he didn’t squeak out “Newt?”

“Newt!” one of the other guys calls happily at the same time. Already drunk. He trips forward and claps Hermann heavily on the shoulder. “This is our buddy—”

“Hermann,” Hermann says. 

“Hermann!” the guy says. 

It’s Newt’s turn to squeak. “Your buddy?”

They don’t hear him. The guy claps Hermann on the shoulder again. “‘S your shot,” he says, and then pushes past to grab a martini glass from Newt. He smiles down at him, and, just as Newt expected, shoves a couple bills down the front of Newt’s corset. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

“My shot,” Hermann echoes, faintly, gaze fixed on the corset. (Newt feels naked in front of him like this—not just scantily clad, which he is, of course, but full-on _ naked_. Like Hermann’s boring holes through his clothing.) He shakes his head. “Of course,” he says, and clears his throat. “My shot.” He swaps his cane out for a pool cue.

“Sucker thinks he can beat us,” the drunk guy slurs, loud in Newt’s ear. He slings an arm around Newt’s waist and nearly knocks over the other three cocktails. “He’s lost so much fuckin’ money already.”

Newt watches Hermann make a weak, miserable shot; he scratches immediately, and swears. “_Damn_.” Hermann’s opponent—shooting Newt a wink—pushes Hermann aside and sinks three solid balls. Only the black eight ball remains among most of Hermann’s striped.

“I make this,” the other guy says, pointing at the eight ball, then at his chosen pocket, “and you lose again, Herm.” He snaps his fingers. “Newt—” Newt wriggles out from the arm of his drunk friend—grateful for the excuse to—and stumbles his way over. The guy downs half his gin and tonic before sinking the eight ball in a nice, clean shot. Hermann sags in defeat against the table. “Alright, fork it on over.”

Hermann, grumbling, tosses a wad of cash at him. A _ significant _wad of cash. What looks like a hefty chunk of his PPDC paycheck, in fact.

Newt gapes at him.

There’s not a single thing about this that makes sense. Hermann doesn’t wear leather jackets. Hermann doesn’t go to bars. Hermann doesn’t gamble. Hermann doesn’t have the _ money _ to gamble. Most jarring of all, though, the thing that’s really throwing Newt for a fucking loop and making him feel like he stepped into the Twilight Zone: Hermann is a _ fantastic _pool player. He’s kicked Newt’s ass—and the asses of anyone who dares challenge him—more times in the Shatterdome break room than Newt can count.

“Hey, Newt,” the third guy (relaxed and leaning against the wall) calls, dragging Newt from his thoughts, “don’t I get my drink?”

“Of course, uh, honey,” Newt says, and hurries over. He stands just a little too close and bats his eyelashes just a little too much and gets another reasonable tip for his troubles, stuffed, this time, into one of his stocking garters visible through the slit in his skirt. He doesn’t miss the way Hermann’s eyes linger over this too.

Neither does Newt’s tipper. He flashes Hermann a grin. “Isn’t he a cute little guy?”

Hermann turns bright red, eyes snapping up. “Er,” he splutters, “I—I don’t—”

Newt decides to save him. Besides. He wants a fucking _ word _ with him anyway. “Oh!” he suddenly exclaims, widening his eyes with practiced innocence. “I forgot to give you _ your _drink, too, Hermann!” He takes a step forward—

—and immediately trips and spills the cocktail across his shirt. A pure accident to anyone who’s watching. He makes sure to land, on his hands and knees, at Hermann’s feet, ass stuck out high, skirt sliding up; the tray and glass (plastic) clatter next to him. Hermann looks at him like he’s seen a ghost. “Oh _ no_,” Newt sighs. “I’m so clumsy, I’m sorry.” He bats his eyelashes up at Hermann and sticks his lip out in a pout. “I ruined your shirt.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hermann croaks out. “It’s fine.”

Newt gets up with a lot more grunting and grabbing hold of Hermann’s waist than strictly necessary and plucks at the front of the wet shirt. There’s a massive green splotch spreading over the grey cotton. Newt liked this shirt. It's a hard sacrifice. “C’mon, let’s take care of this in the bathroom,” he says. “‘N I’ll get you a new drink.” He takes Hermann’s hand to wolf-whistles and something that sounds vaguely like insinuations that Hermann is about to get lucky.

The second the bathroom door is shut and locked behind them, Newt rounds on Hermann.

“Hey, dude,” he says, “what the fuck?”

“I might ask _ you _ the same!” Hermann says, beet red, and grabs a fist of Newt’s skirt and shakes it. “What on earth are you doing parading around in _ this _ in a place like _ here_? Of all the seedy—”

“My job,” Newt says, and Hermann’s eyebrows jump. “In case you haven’t noticed, we have no fucking money, so—” Newt digs the night’s worth of tips from his corset and waves them in Hermann’s face before shoving them back down. Even before he started waiting on the pool table, he was doing a-okay tonight. “—I had to get creative. Or maybe you haven’t noticed, seeing as you’re just _ throwing _cash away—when did you forget how to make a fucking shot, anyway?”

“I’m not _ throwing _it away,” Hermann says, swelling with anger. “I’m—” He shifts uncomfortably. “Well, if you must know, I’m—what’s it called—hustling. I’m hustling them.”

“You’re—?”

“I’m hustling them!” Hermann hisses. “I have noticed we haven’t got any money, thank you, and you’re not the only one getting creative. This is the third pub I’ve been to this week. I find some intoxicated morons, build the bets up higher and higher, and—” He clears his throat. “I _ don’t _feel bad about it. It’s—er—it’s for a greater cause, after all.”

Newt can’t help it; he grins delightedly. Hermann’s weird absences make a lot more sense now. “Holy shit, Hermann,” he says. “This is so badass of you.” And sexy, but he’s not going to tell Hermann that. “How much have you won so far?”

Hermann’s ears go red, but he looks pleased. “A decent amount.”

“Is that why you…?” Newt waves his hand at Hermann’s skinny jeans.

“My usual clothing isn’t exactly—well,” Hermann says, “_inconspicuous_, is it? I didn’t want to attract unwanted attention.”

Newt’s grin widens. “You’re failing there, dude,” and, before he can help himself (and it’s a totally normal compliment to give a friend, okay, especially when you’ve only ever seen that friend in baggy slacks and sweatervests), “You look _ hot_. Seriously. Since when do you own jeans?’

“Ah,” Hermann says, looking up at the ceiling, “they’re, ah, yours, actually. And the shirt. I hoped you wouldn’t mind.” He shifts uncomfortably again, and Newt realizes it’s not just out of embarrassment. “Bloody tight,” he adds, tugging at the crotch. “How can you stand them?”

Newt definitely isn’t looking for Hermann’s dick outline, but if he was, he might see that the jeans really _ do _fit Hermann a bit more snugly down there, and it’s not just because he’s taller. “I manage,” Newt says. “Hey, listen, we should probably head back out there before they realize something is up.” He pulls an armful of paper towels from the dispenser and thrusts them at Hermann. “Clean yourself up a little.”

“I suppose.” Hermann works his jaw furiously, tapping one finger at the head of his cane. “I don’t like the way they look at you, Newton,” he confesses. “It’s—_objectifying _.”

“Aw. You gentleman,” Newt says. He makes sure to swish his skirt a little as he breezes past Hermann with a wink. “I saw you looking too, you know.”

He leaves Hermann spluttering indignantly behind him.

By the time Newt runs a tray of shots over to another table and brings Hermann his replacement cocktail, two of the men have started up another game of pool; Hermann sits this one out and watches them with affected glumness. “We’re giving the poor bastard a break,” the one not playing whispers in Newt’s ear, one hand placed possessively at his back. (How charitable, Newt thinks.) “We’ll clean him out next round.”

Newt hangs off the guy’s arm for a few more minutes and watches the pool game between making appropriately pretty eyes and groping at all the right muscles, and he slips away and over to where Hermann’s sitting the moment he gets another bill crammed into a stocking garter. It means missing out on more tips, of course, but at least Hermann won’t try to stick his hands down Newt’s underwear. Newt could use a break.

“Is this seat taken?” Newt says, grinning flirtily as he lowers himself onto Hermann’s good knee. Hermann wheezes something unintelligible out in surprise, but doesn’t try to push Newt off, so Newt takes this as his approval to kick one leg up on the armrest and settle in. He strokes back a few strands of Hermann’s hair. “You look so sad, honey,” he coos. He works Hermann’s leather jacket off his shoulders, short sleeves of his t-shirt flashing what’s—_really_—some impressive biceps. Hermann should forgo the blazers more often. “All over a silly game.”

“Cheer him up, Newt!” one of the other guys calls.

Hermann flushes tremendously. “You don’t have to—” he breathes, barely audible, but Newt winks and presses his face to the crook of Hermann’s neck.

“C’mon, play along,” he whispers, “touch me a little, make it believable. It’ll get them all jealous.” Jealousy means working to get Newt back at their sides instead, which means, of course, more tips. “I’m not gonna bite, Hermann.” Feeling bold, for no other reason than that Hermann looks hot, that he’s been _looking_ at Newt tonight, and that Newt can feel him getting a little bit too interested in the way Newt’s ass is pressing against him, he grazes his teeth gently across Hermann’s jaw to prove his point.

A low groan rumbles in Hermann’s throat. One of his hands flies up and grips Newt’s thigh under his skirt, right overtop his stocking. It’s almost tight enough to tear the silk. “Ease up there, hot shot,” Newt orders in another whisper. “You rip them, I gotta buy more, and this shit is expensive.”

Hermann—the _ gentleman _ he is—loosens his fingers obediently, then slides his hand up further above the stocking to rest just below Newt’s ass. He’s started sweating; Newt, himself, is finding a bit harder to breathe. “How’s that?” Hermann croaks.

“Perfect,” Newt says. “Okay, wait for my signal.”

“Signal?” Hermann says. “For—for _ what_?”

Newt tosses his head back with an exaggerated laugh and splays a hand across Hermann’s chest. “You’re _ so _funny, Hermann,” he says loudly. “Isn’t he funny?”

There’s a lull in the pool game. The other guys don’t seem to think Hermann is very funny. 

“And sexy, too,” Newt says. He strokes the side of Hermann’s face. “I’m a sucker for cheekbones.”

“Hey, Newt,” one of the guys says, and Newt—from the corner of his eye—can spot him getting out his wallet, success!, “come over _ here _instead.”

Newt leans in and presses a kiss to Hermann’s cheek. It doesn’t require a lot of effort to act head over heels with Hermann, because it’s not exactly acting; most of the time, in fact, Newt is consumed with thoughts of touching and kissing all over Hermann, of Hermann’s pretty brown eyes, his pretty dark eyelashes, of what it’d be like to bite on those weird wide lips. “One sec,” he calls. “_Hermann _ ordered shots for you all.”

“I did?” Hermann whispers, at the same time one of the guys says “He did?”

Newt winks and lifts his skirt, giving Hermann a long eyeful of his lacy pink panties. (Part of the uniform.) He got the job on short notice, and he didn’t really have time, you know, to go and hunt down the kind meant for people with junk, so it’s a bit _ breezier _ than Newt would like. Hermann doesn’t seem to mind. “Oh,” he breathes. The hand at Newt’s upper thigh goes from a clutch to what’s almost a caress.

It’s enough to make Newt shiver. It’s also enough to almost make Newt forget that this was supposed to be his signal. _ Almost_. He shakes his skirt, and Hermann gives a little _ ah! _of realization before digging his unoccupied hand around in his jeans pocket and producing a couple bills. Another wink from Newt, and Hermann’s cramming them down the front of his panties. “Thanks, baby,” Newt says. “Be right back.”

He brings back eight shotglasses full of some horrible blue-tinted vodka they had behind the counter. Two for each. He doesn’t plan on letting Hermann actually drink both, though—the goal is to get the _ other _guys in a good enough mood to accept whatever crazy high bet Hermann puts on his eventual winning game or have them offer some crazy high bet of their own (and to cinch that win, just in case, by keeping Hermann most sober by default). Hermann catches on easily; he waits while the three other guys do their two shots to finally lift one of his own up and peer at it cautiously. Then he turns wide eyes on Newt. “I’ve never...” he stammers, mouth twitching up and betraying him for the smallest fraction of a second.

“Aw, it’s easy,” Newt says. He straddles Hermann’s lap and wraps his fingers around Hermann’s hand. Dude’s being a fantastic sport about all this. “Here,” he says, “I’ll show you.”

He guides the shotglass to his own lips and has Hermann tip it—_shakily_—into his mouth, and makes a show of swallowing it down, groaning contentedly, and flicking his tongue at a stray droplet. It tastes fucking awful. He thinks it’s raspberry. “Your turn,” Newt says, and snags the remaining shotglass to tip into Hermann’s mouth, too.

Hermann makes a face as he swallows. “Oh my,” he coughs. “It’s a bit strong, isn’t it?” The corners of his eyes are threatening to crinkle; he drank half the Shatterdome under the table at the last Halloween party.

“Come on, Newt,” one of the other guys says.

Newt sighs and swings himself off Hermann’s lap.

He gets some more dollars shoved down his corset, another in his garter, and he’s grateful the pool game doesn’t last much longer, because the second the last ball is sunk Hermann is back and lurking at his side. “Please,” Hermann begs the guy who’d been beating him all night, _ so _ pitifully, “ _ one _ more game. Enough that I might earn back what I lost.”

The guy looks like he’s going to laugh in Hermann’s face, but Newt—one hand clutching Hermann’s arm protectively—shoots big, sad, puppy eyes. He relents. “_Fine_,” he says, and then he grins sharply. “Know what? Let’s make it double or nothing.”

“Double or nothing?” Newt echoes.

The guy pulls a thick stack of cash from his front pocket—his winnings from Hermann, it looks like. Then he pulls out his wallet, counts out another stack, and combines that with the other. “Double what I’ve won from you,” he says, and watches Hermann expectantly.

Hermann feigns nervousness: he blinks, he rubs his neck, he shuffles his feet. “Double?” he says. “But that’s—”

“Aw, you can beat him, Hermann!” Newt cuts in, squeezing Hermann’s arm. It’s Hermann’s turn to get the big puppy eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, Newt catches his admirer scowling.

“Let’s raise the stakes _higher_,” the guy says. He reaches out and grabs hold of Newt’s skirt and tugs him, hard, away from Hermann, hard enough that Newt almost goes sprawling across the ground for real this time. He’s more drunk than Newt realized—he must’ve been drinking since he got here. Hermann doesn’t let go of his arm. “Winner gets to take Newt home.”

Newt’s fixed smile falters a little, and he laughs nervously, feeling vaguely like the rope in a game of tug-of-war; Hermann’s own face hardens. He’s not acting this time. “Newt is _ not—_”

“Winner takes me home,” Newt interrupts, and gives Hermann a small, stiff nod. He doesn’t want Hermann to piss the guy off and for a fight to break out, because he’s sure a fight _ would _ break out—Newt’s admirer looks about five seconds away from lunging at Hermann with a pool cue, and his friends don’t seem like they’d be that inclined to hold him back if he tried. It’d be suspicious if Hermann kept insisting on Newt’s _ autonomy _, anyway, after Newt spent the night curled up in his lap with Hermann’s hand on his ass. 

“If you’re sure,” Hermann says, and nods, curtly, back.

Newt is tasked with counting up both bets to make sure they’re equal, and shit, if that isn’t a lot of money. Enough to buy _ three _ kaiju spleens, probably. He’d feel bad for the guy if he wasn’t an asshole and if Hermann wasn’t so fucking hot right now (hustling suckers out of money, and in a _ leather jacket_) Newt can hardly stand it. He tucks it all into his corset after nodding his approval of the amount.

“I hope you win, Hermann,” he says, adopting wide-eyed innocence once more, and leans in and presses an equally innocent kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Hermann fumbles and drops his cue chalk.

Newt swallows a laugh. He’s having fun flirting with Hermann like this: his usual attempts consist of a lot of backhanded compliments, following him around the lab until he finally snaps and yells at Newt, and leaving cups of tea on Hermann’s desk that Hermann doesn’t find until three days after the fact when he inevitably knocks them over onto important papers. It’s nice to just—be _ open _about his interest, even if he’s not sure how seriously Hermann is taking him. Open, and a little over the top. It’s also nice to have Hermann act interested in him in return, even if he’s not treating it very seriously either.

“I’ll get that for you, baby,” Newt says, patting Hermann’s hip. He bends over with his ass stuck out as high as he can manage, skirt flipping all the way up, and gropes around on the ground for a bit. He gets back up with a long, loud groan. And a grin. “Want me to do the tip for you?” He waves the chalk cube around.

Hermann’s tongue darts out over his bottom lip. The corners of his eyes are crinkling, mischievously, again. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he says, holding his pool cue out, and tacks on, disinterestedly, “_love_.”

Newt chalks up the tip _ thoroughly _ while rubbing one clenched hand up and down the length of the cue, and when he’s done, he puckers his lips in a mock-kiss and blows off the excess chalk. His fingers brush Hermann’s when he hands it back. 

“You break, Herm,” Hermann’s opponent calls. He looks at them, half-smug, half-angry, like Newt’s property that Hermann’s _ infringed _on and that he’s going to win back.

Newt stops Hermann with a hand to his chest before Hermann can rest his cane against the wall and start the game. “Can I break for you?” he says, and bats his eyelashes. “For good luck?”

“Let the little guy do it,” one of the other two guys crows; they’ve both gotten another drink each. Hermann’s opponent nods.

Newt makes a show of fumbling with the pool cue, finally dropping it with a clatter against the table. “Oops,” he says. “I don’t think I’m very good at this. Hermann, could _ you _show me how to do it?”

The threat of another smile. “Now, darling, it’s not very hard,” Hermann says. He settles a hand on Newt’s back and nudges at Newt until he bends obediently over the table. “Here—”

To Newt’s surprise (and to his not-so-secret delight) he feels Hermann press up tight against him, chest-to-back, rough denim on Newt’s lace and bare thighs; then, the pool cue sliding into his hands, Hermann arranging Newt’s fingers around it, and Hermann’s own hand settling over Newt’s. Newt’s pulse is pounding so loudly he misses what Hermann says next. “Huh?”

“You draw it back,” Hermann says, hot in his ear, guiding Newt’s arm back, “and—”

He pushes it forward: the cue ball hits and scatters the others with a loud _ crack _, and Newt is jostled back against Hermann, back against his none-too-subtle arousal. 

Huh.

Hermann pats Newt’s thigh. He leaves his hand there. “Mm. Well _ done_, Newt.”

“Thanks,” Newt says, breathlessly. 

The game, once Newt collects himself enough to pay attention, starts out as Newt presumes the rest had. Hermann lets his opponent build up a false sense of security while building up his own aura of _ lack _of it, occasionally glancing around, nervously, swallowing, nervously, and tugging at his collar, nervously. It’s really something to watch Hermann work—he’s got about a third of the confidence that he usually carries himself with.

Newt’s just wondering when Hermann’s going to really switch it on when Hermann’s opponent answers his question for him: he walks by Newt, and, with a wink and a leer, narrowly misses (because Newt has become very good at dodging these sorts of things) grabbing a handful of Newt’s ass. He’s undeterred anyway. “You’re coming home with a real _ winner _ tonight, Newt,” he declares. 

Hermann’s features have hardened again; his brow is furrowed; his mouth, which had been screwed up in mock anxiety, twists into a scowl. It gives Newt a weird little thrill in the pit of his stomach. “He certainly will be,” Hermann says icily.

Hermann wins in a single turn, but not before _ accidentally _smacking the guy in the gut with the back end of his pool cue. It’s his own fault for standing too close to Hermann.

Newt’s admirers, it turns out, are _ sore _losers, even sorer when Newt is on the line alongside money, and—though Newt thinks, privately, Hermann getting into a barfight for him would be really hot—neither Newt nor Hermann particularly feel like sticking around to find out how they might retaliate once they figure out they’ve been conned, so Newt blows them all consolation kisses and he and Hermann book it out of there pretty fast. And Newt does mean book it. He’s speedwalking as fast as his wobbly legs and stupid heels will let him, Hermann as fast as his restrictive jeans will.

(Newt gets another strange thrill in the pit of his stomach at the thought of what it must look like to the rest of the bar, of how _ he _must look—Newt, throwing himself at some handsome stranger all night, dragging his hands across his body, paraded out the door on an arm like a prize to be bed down and conquered, not even bothering to change out of his gimmicky lingerie or even pull all the crumpled bills from his garters.)

They slow down a few blocks from the bar at the entrance of a deserted alleyway, and, positive they haven’t been followed, dissolve into giggles against each other. “You were marvelous,” Hermann wheezes. Newt’s holding up most of his weight. “You were really quite—”

“Are you kidding me?” Newt says, smiling so wide it hurts. “_You _ were the one who was fucking marvelous. You—”

Hermann grabs either side of Newt’s face and kisses him. 

After the way Hermann acted tonight, Newt can’t really say it’s that much of a surprise, but he still never expected this sort of thing to happen outside of daydreams and sexy fantasies. It stuns him into silence. Eventually, he remembers to kiss back.

“I’ve wanted to do that all bloody night,” Hermann breathes into Newt’s mouth. He slides one of his hands—shaking—back through Newt’s sweaty hair, and adjusts his glasses carefully. “You look—you look lovely, Newton.”

“Oh,” Newt says.

“Very lovely,” Hermann amends. He presses another kiss to Newt’s mouth, then at the corner (as Newt had to him earlier), the small dip above Newt’s top lip, back to his mouth, where he swipes with his tongue, and Newt parts his lips eagerly to let him in. Hermann’s pupils are dark and wide. He’s hard. Newt wonders if he has been since that opening shot of the last pool game.

He kind of wants to make out with Hermann on the filthy curbside forever, and he also kind of wants to take Hermann back to his bunk, peel him out of the stupid borrowed jeans, and ride him for two hours straight. He settles for somewhere in the middle. “Hey,” he says, nudging Hermann away from him. “Can I blow you?”

“_What_?”

Newt grins and starts working the jacket off Hermann’s shoulders. “I said whoever won could take me home. I’m not gonna back out _ now_.” The jacket falls to the sidewalk to rest with Hermann’s cane; Newt snakes a hand down to the front of the skinny jeans and rubs at Hermann through them, enjoying the way he stiffens further at his touch. “Can I blow you?” he murmurs with a quick little nip at Hermann’s bottom lip. “I think it’d be hot. Also, it’s going to be embarrassing enough riding the bus without—” He squeezes, and Hermann moans. “—_this _ to worry about.”

It’s sound logic. Newt knows Hermann never puts up an argument when Newt makes a good point.

He ends up on his knees in the alleyway with his corset pulled down low enough to flash Hermann his pecs, one of Hermann’s hands in Newt’s hair, the other clenching his cane in a death grip, and his dick down Newt’s throat. Newt’s impressed with himself for getting Hermann in as deep as he did: he hasn’t had a whole lot of practice recently, and Hermann is bigger than what Newt’s used to. He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job, though, judging by the noises Hermann makes, the way his whole body’s gone taut and rigid, how hazy and out-of-focus his eyes have gotten. Or maybe Hermann’s just easy to please.

He pulls off and presses a kiss to Hermann’s thigh. “You having fun?”

Hermann moans. He’s not being very talkative, for some reason.

Newt grins. “Glad to hear it,” he says. He’s pretty sure Hermann is having a lot more than just _ fun. _He let Hermann feel him up a little—grope under his skirt to paw at his ass and thighs, rut against him through his underwear, pinch his nipples—before Newt got down to business, and Hermann had looked like he was on cloud nine. “You wanna pull my hair a little? It feels good.”

Hermann does. He gives an experimental tug, light at first, and follows it up with a sharper one that makes Newt’s eyes water.

“Nice,” Newt groans. He spits on his hand and starts working Hermann with it. “So you got a thing for—” He gestures to himself with his unoccupied hand, from the loose corset to the stockings. “—all this?”

“I’m not sure,” Hermann says, voice thin and breathy. “I think it might. Ah.” Newt plants a little kiss to the tip of Hermann’s dick. “Might just be you.” He rubs him between his pecs and at the front of the corset, precome smearing from his skin to the fabric, and Hermann bucks against him. “_Newton_.”

“That’s romantic,” Newt says. “I’ll wear this next time we fuck.”

“Next time?” Hermann echoes, sounding a little dazed.

“Hey,” Newt says, “I bet I can get it _ all _ down my throat.”

He can’t, but it’s the effort that counts, and Hermann doesn’t seem to mind that Newt ends up gagging on him a little. Far from it—his knees buckle, and he jizzes down Newt’s throat.

Newt wipes his chin off with another grin. “Good?” he says.

“Good,” Hermann gasps, and Newt nuzzles another little kiss against his thigh. He has a little freckle there. “Very well done, Newton.”

“Sweet,” Newt says. He fixes his top and smooths down his hair (there’s nothing, really, to be done about the runs in his tights), then gets to work on doing up Hermann’s jeans. He can’t resist leaving a few more kisses behind, across both thighs and the soft head of his dick, before he pulls up his briefs and tucks him back in. “Okay, we’ll miss the last bus if we don’t hurry, so—”

“Don’t you—?’ Hermann says, watching, still in that strange daze, as Newt gets to his feet unsteadily. “What I mean is, should I—?” He motions towards the front of Newt’s skirt; Newt laughs, and, feeling bold, lifts it to flash him his panties. He’s still got a few of Hermann’s dollars tucked in there. Hermann doesn’t bother pretending to avert his eyes.

“_You _can take care of this when we get home,” Newt says. “We have all night.” He drops his skirt, but not before dragging his fingers over the tented lace and giving an exaggerated flutter of his eyelashes.

They can’t get back to the Shatterdome fast enough.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at hermannsthumb, twitter at hermanngaylieb, and horny (aka 18+) twitter at hermanngayszler, where i tweet about dumb horny fic concepts like this!


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